Thursday, 29 November 2012

For a couple of weeks I hardly knitted at all - for no particular reason, but I've discovered it's pointless trying to knit when I'm not in the mood. The advantage was that I suddenly had a lot more time to read books, which I also love doing.

A month or two ago I started knitting a shawl using wool from fellow knitter Kerry in Australia. I was fairly happy with the project but not quite (this too for no particular reason) but the other day I had an idea what to knit instead: it turns it it will be a multi-continental project. The wool is from Australia, I'm making use of the Estonian nupp pattern, and the garment will be typical of South America.

To my surprise I'm knitting a poncho! What made me go ahead with the idea was that I could try a couple of things I haven't done before. (Perhaps that's why I didn't knit for a couple of weeks, not feeling I was learning new things? Not that I always have to, but I want to keep developing my knowledge and skills.)

First, knitting lace in the round. It's easier and quicker, not having long rows of purl stitches - but to me it doesn't look quite as good. (Good enough not to frog it, though.) Knitting back and forth seems to have a levelling effect; in this project my decreases that slant to the right are looser than the ones slanting to the left.

Also, as I normally knit lace back and forth with yarnovers and decreases on right-side rows only, I tend to do them on all rows instead of every second now that all rows are knitted with the right side facing. So far, I have discovered such mistakes quickly.

The other thing I'm practising is knitting nupps in the round (7 stitches in one, then knit all 7 together on next row). It's definitely easier to knit than purl so many stitches together, but I miss the levelling effect of knitting back and forth here too: the stitch to the right of a nupp is very loose and the one to the left is rather tight. Well, practise might improve it.

Thursday, 8 November 2012

Once a month there's a knittig café at Nordiska museet in Stockholm. (Not just a café, you can - and occasionally do - get a glass of wine too.) I was there yesterday and had a great time with knitter friends like Maria and Born to knit.

However, one of the first people I saw when I entered the museum was Queen Silvia, which was quite a surprise! She hadn't brought any knitting as far as I could see (shockingly bad manners) but was inspecting an upcoming exhibition of antiquities. Perhaps I should have invited her to join us?

I have almost finished my "Roman Crystal" shawl. The pattern is Marianne Kinzel's "English Crystal" from her First Book of Modern Lace Knitting. Thanks Ron for opening my eyes to the beauty of it! I made another shawl using this pattern not too long ago, but it's such a fun pattern to knit I wanted to use it again to bring out the beauty of the cashmere I bought in Rome recently.

The original design is a square that consists of four triangles and that is knitted in the round; instead, I knit three triangles back and forth. I also changed the edge. In the previous shawl (see photo above) I simply took the "Peacock's Eye" from another design in the same book. Sometimes I feel like Dr Frankenstein.

I tried the same idea now, but the cashmere is so much thicker that the big holes looked rather clumsy. Therefore, I kept the shape of the edge, but made three smaller holes instead.

"Roman Crystal" shawl in progress

Now that the shawl is almost finished I wish I had bought more of the yarn, but at the same time I'm happy I made up my mind how to use it so quickly as it is such a treat to work with.

There were a number of reasons behind my choice - here are the main ones that I always have in mind:

1. How to bring out the beauty of the yarn. In this case I thought the stocking-stitch parts would show off the lovely, slightly heathery shade of red.

2. What kind of garment is the yarn quality suitable for? Light and soft would make a nice shawl.

3. What is there enough yarn for? As I haven't worked with this yarn before, I couldn't be sure. (That's one of the main reasons I often use the same yarns over and over again.) A shawl with this kind of pattern is a good choice as you add repeats until you're out of yarn. (Well, not quite as simple as that in reality, but almost.)

4. Will I enjoy knitting it? As I probably have written before, I think life is too short to knit things I don't enjoy making. This pattern was fun to knit with enough variation to keep it from gettting monotonous - and it's quite fascinating seeing how different a pattern turns out depending on the yarn you choose.

5. Do I like the way it looks? Even if I won't wear it myself I want to enjoy looking at it while making it.

Regarding the last two points, I could add that I'm a proud member of the "Selfish knitters" group on Ravelry! I'm less selfish when it comes to making presents of the things I make - at least I hope and think so, even though I'm well aware I have far more sweaters than I need. ;-)

Friday, 2 November 2012

New sweater in progress: a second version of Marianne Isager's "Munken" (the monk) but with some new modifications. Like last time, I'm skipping the hood, but this time my plan is to make some kind of shawl collar - therefore, the neck opening is rectangular.

Writing to a knitter friend recently I realized that I've been surprisingly good at sticking to my stash-decreasing intention to make two projects with yarn from my stash before I may buy new yarn.

Good boys get to buy good yarn - and if they're really lucky they get to buy it in Rome! I'm back in Stockholm now, but the day before yesterday I bought some gorgeous cashmere at Lana della Vecchia near Campo dei Fiori. There were many beautiful colours, but this shade of red was Rome to me more than the other ones.